Tote Picks

What are tote picks? How valuable are they? When you go to the track and watch the monitors for each track you'll see that the odds start out at the beginning with the morning line odds. As money is bet on each of the horses the odds begin to change. The tote board now begins to reflect the opinion of each of the bettors in aggregate.

Over the years I have kept track of the odds on each horse in the race as the tote changes and as you get closer and closer to post time for the race. It's an interesting exercise if you have never done it. All it takes is a pad of paper and a pencil. You just list the number of the horses vertically and then record the time (minutes before post time) at the top. You then copy the odds from the tote board each time recording the minutes to post.

Here is a sample of what that might look like.

........M/L 18m 15m 12m 9m 6m 3m
1........12.....10.....11....10....9...10....9
2.........8......9.....9......8....7.....7.....7
3........2....5/2...5/2....2...2...9/5..9/5
4.......4......5.......4......4...3....2.....8/5
5......20....99....80...50....30....25...22
6......10....20....15.....14.....15.....12...11
7........6......9......9......8......8.....8.....7
8......30....70....40...30....28....25...22

Notice that the 4 horse began to take some significant money bets beginning at the 9 minute mark (9m). Money continued to be taken on the 4 horse and at the 3 minute mark he became the tote pick at 8/5. The morning line favorite was at 9/5. Now this doesn't mean that the 4 horse will necessarily win but it does indicate that the betting public believes, for whatever reason, that this horse will win. The 4 horse (tote pick) and the 3 horse (morning line favorite) should be in any exotic bet you make.

In a later post I will point out some tote pick patterns that can be very useful, especially when you combine them with some handicapping.